Political Drama! What's Going On with the Debate?

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Think drama is just for your girlfriends? Think again — because election '08 just got very dramatic!

The first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain is supposed to be tonight. But because of
an announcement by the McCain campaign on Wednesday, the question of whether
the debate is actually going to happen has turned into a debate itself!

Here's what happened: You know that the economy has not been doing well lately (if you missed it,
you can read about the Wall Street crisis here). To help fix the economy, the Bush
administration proposed a $700 billion (woah!) "bailout package."
But many people in Congress don't like Bush's proposal — because it's
super short (the description of the plan isn't even three pages long!),
it would give almost complete control of the
situation to the Bush administration, and it won't help ordinary
Americans, according to opponents.

Now, Congress is trying to come to an agreement about what to do about Bush's bailout package. Bush
says Congress needs to pass the plan NOW because all the arguing is
wasting time to help the economy! But many people in Congress say they would rather take
a few days to make the proposal better than approve one they
don't like at all!

So, how does this relate to tonight's debate? On Wednesday,
John McCain announced that he wanted to postpone tonight's debate so that he
could go to Washington
and help Congress come to an agreement on the bailout package! McCain said that we
must "set politics aside" in order to help to solve the financial crisis.

Obama totally rejected McCain's proposal to skip the debate! "This is
exactly the time when people need to hear from the candidates," Obama said.
"Part of the president's job is to deal with more than one thing at once. In my
mind it's more important than ever."

Some people in Congress reacted to McCain's proposal with total outrage, pointing to
the fact that the Senate doesn't work at 9 p.m. on Friday nights anyway (which is when the
debate is supposed to start) and that McCain just used the excuse as a
way to get out of answering tough questions on the economy.

In the meantime, the University of Mississippi
(which is hosting the debate) said it would march on with the preparations, and Obama
said that he'll be at the debate whether or not McCain decides to show up! It'stotal political drama!

So, what do you think
of McCain's attempt to suspend the debate? Do you think that now is a better
time to "set aside politics" or hear
the candidates talk about the issues? Debate the debate!

UPDATE: John McCain now says that he will attend the debate! Don't forget to tune in TONIGHT at 9 p.m. EST on any of the major networks or cable!